Who knew my daughter could love a rat?

Saturday was a busy day. We got up and moving fairly early. Fairly early for us that is. Usually a day off is spent sleeping in or lounging around most of the morning. But we things to do, people to see, places to be.


We first packed up our laundry and went to the laundromat. We left directly from there to go to Chuck E. Cheese's to meet some friends. Our friend has a little boy who is just a few months older than Lourdes and he apparently had a terrific time at Chuck E. Cheese's not too long ago.


Lourdes seemed to enjoy the little toddler rides - as long as they weren't moving. When the ride started moving, she had a look of not-quite-terror-but-close-enough on her face. But she definitely like looking at everything. The funny part was when we went to see Chuck E. while he was admiring all the patrons who were adding to his 401k. Lourdes saw Chuck E. and went absolutely bananas! Her face turned red, she stiffened her body and started shaking and screaming! She LOVED Chuck E.! All her commotion was like someone winning Publisher's Clearinghouse. We thought she would be scared of him, but she was completely drawn to him. She touched his face and grabbed his hand. A little later we watched Chuck E. with a bunch of children gathered around him dancing. Lourdes was still going nuts, screaming and kicking. On the way out, we bought her a Chuck E. doll which she immediately hugged and would not let out of her hands.



From Chuck E.'s, we went home to relax for a while before heading out to a Riverman game. We've been to several hockey games this season and the Riverman are turning things around a bit. They got off to a slow start, but have won a high percentage of their games lately. Saturday night they were playing Toledo. The Rivs had moments where they looked really good and more where they looked bad. Toledo would score, then the Rivs would score. In the third period, it was tied at three and the Rivs looked like they might salvage a win. Suddenly, a defender fell down and it was a breakaway, two on our goalie. Toledo handled the puck well and snuck one in to take the lead. Peoria had about a minute to try and answer so they pulled the goalie to have an extra man trying to score. Unfortunately, there was a faceoff near center ice and Toledo managed to put the puck in the open net out of the faceoff! That was it for the Rivermen. Less than a minute left, there was no real chance of a comeback so people started to leave the arena. I wanted to wait until the bitter end in case there was a fight. I wasn't disappointed (well I was disappointed about the loss) because with about 15 seconds left a couple of guys started duking it out. I don't think a hockey game is complete without a couple of fights. If we don't win the game, we should at least make them pay for it.

Later!